This blog is dedicated to treating everyone - clients, prospects, friends, and family - as valuable partners. We should show them our gratitude through all our actions, including our marketing.

September 25, 2016

Apples Versus Oranges

We all know other businesses who offer us examples of how to
operate successfully. We have our networking partners who provide us advice and
support when we need it. We also can attend seminars or webinars on the steps to
take to improve our businesses and lead us to greater success. There is a world
of books, articles, and other reference material which can teach us what we are
doing wrong and what we should do to correct our errors.

With all these sources of information that should enable us
to move our businesses to better numbers of sales and success, we must learn to
how to utilize that information. If we attend a seminar on business, we must
actually attempt to apply the methods learned. The same may be said when we read
books or receive advice from our networking partners. All the information is useless
until we apply it.

However, there is another pitfall which we must avoid above
doing nothing with what we have learned. We must apply the correct information
to our business. Does the data that we have actually apply to our business, its
employees, or its customers? We must avoid the “apples versus oranges” trap. Is
the advice from someone who is a realtor the best plan for us? Is the example
of operating a hamburger shop the best model for a direct selling business? We
must apply the argument of “apples versus oranges”.

There are some basics of marketing that apply to all
businesses. Be professional in operating a business; do not operate a business
like a hobby. No one will take us seriously unless we do so ourselves. Be
passionate about a business and be a product of our product. If we do not
believe in what we offer, how can anyone else? Be personal and treat everyone
else, whether they are prospects, customers, clients, employees, or networking
partners, as human beings and with courtesy and gratitude for whatever they do
for us and others.

An on-line based business may, or may not, need guidance for
leasing office space. A floral shop may be able to learn from a hamburger shop,
but they might not need guidance on overnight retail operations. The same
employees required for a sheet metal manufacturer might not the same as when we
need to hire an in-house legal team. However, there may be some general
guidelines that we may learn from hearing and seeing them in operation or just hearing
about them.

We must be able to discern what information may be able to
help us make our businesses better and which will not. It will amaze the
onlooker what we can gleam from someone else who isn’t in the same industry as
we are, and what we can emulate which may give us greater success. Showing
gratitude for our employees should provide us their loyalty and their continued
higher work ethic, just as it should affect our customers and networking
partners.

Gratitude Marketing has a never ending
list of results that can assist us in improving our businesses. It can be
applied to everyone whom we reach every day of our lives. It is not something that
we “turn on” on special occasions but is a lifestyle that is useful in both our
business and personal lives. If we give it a chance, it can make us much better
people with whom to associate and do business, and that makes everyone’s life
better. If we try some of that Gratitude Marketing, we will discover that we
like it. Please leave me your comments, or email me at Jim@JimTeasley.com, or call me at 360-314-8691.